Sully say:
I think that the religious impulse is something like a natural response to life, its mystery and beauty. And I have the feeling that many atheists are attempting to reject those elements in an effort to control our uncontrollable lives. By rejecting mystery, though, an atheist rejects life, really. Viewed this way, it is hardly a surprise that children of atheists must find that they reject it: it is difficult to live so grimly and so at odds with humanity.
The counter-argument is most xians are quite content to look at the World with wide-eyed gaze of wonderment, looking at stars as simply being distant lights that only point to the glory of God, and nothing deeper. Not asking how far they are, or how long the light took to reach Earth, or what the colors indicate, etc.
It's like any Watchtower that shows a lion standing in the New System, not as a predator, but simply a pet, a play-thing for the kids to crawl all over, frolick with, and pet. It's a very naive, human-centered Disneyesque view of animals, ignoring the perspective that observational field study by a naturalist would see (eg watching them hunt for food, etc).
They seem afraid to learn the mechanisms by which the natural World operates, in fear of learning or infringing on God's secrets (or perhaps out of laziness, not willing to put in the effort required to learn).
A niece who's a JW commented how nice it will be in the New System when she FINALLY has time to learn about whatever we were talking about: I told her I didn't go to college simply because it was fun to learn, but to APPLY that knowledge to solve real-World problems. Of course, there's no reason to learn about science, since all needs will be provided for: God will provide clean energy, clean food, etc. It would be a World of busy work, technician-level jobs.
You'd agree with me, cofty, about this. And that is what I mean. I certainly didn't mean to say you don't think pretty sunsets are pretty.
Dawkins' latest book (The Magic of Reality: How We Know Whats Really True) takes a different tack from his prior books, as it's written for children and young adults and looks at the fascinating elements to be found in the natural world, eg explaining how a rainbow works, etc. Maybe I'm the odd ball out, but I've always found that understanding the mechanisms of how things work (say, understanding music theory) doesn't remove the beauty or enjoyment of the subject, but enhances it.
Huh? You can't be angry at something you believe does not exist. Period. If you are angry at god, you are not an atheist. You are simply a disgruntled believer. We aren't talking about a journey, we are talkiing about a conclusion.
And that highlights the problem how people who self-identify their belief cannot be expected to categorize themselves accurately: they're only human.
